All of us, from cradle to grave, are happiest when life is organized as a series of excursions, long or short, from the secure base provided by our attachment figures. – Dr. John Bowlby

Have we really cracked the code on love and romantic bonding? Perhaps. Scientists, poets, and lovers have long grappled with the question: “What makes romantic love work?” Through the work of Dr. Sue Johnson and the development of Emotionally Focused Therapy, it looks like we have an answer.

Through decades of research on the importance of emotional bonding and what it is like to feel disconnected, isolated, and alone, relationship researchers are starting to unravel the mystery of love and adult romantic bonding and how to mend loving ties. The truth is, we are all hard-wired to connect to one another. This drive to connect is infinitely stronger in family and romantic relationships. To be emotionally isolated is harsh on our brains. Loving connections offer us a safe haven to go to where we can maintain our emotional balance, deal with stress, and respond more lovingly to our romantic partners. Essentially, when those connections are secure and strong, love is safe; love flourishes.

Unfortunately, disconnections between couples do happen and frustration, sadness, and anger are all too common in marital relationships. When those secure and loving bonds are threatened, emotional “primal panic” and a cycle of negative interactions ensues. These wounds can be difficult to repair for couples when left to their own abilities, and therapy is often the last step before looking to end the relationship. Unfortunately, many well-meaning therapists utilize their individual-based, time-tested techniques and attempt to apply them to relational interactions, which usually has little effect in restoring their loving bonds. In addition, many therapeutic techniques focus on helping partners change behaviors or thoughts, or teaching them communication skills. The common result from these approaches and techniques is that they usually struggle to gain traction, and the couple leaves therapy with less hope than before.

But there is hope. Within the last 25 years, a substantial amount of research has emerged that gives hope to couples on the brink and helps them tune in to their underlying emotions, identify their negative patterns of interaction, repair their attachment, and eventually create new patterns of bonding and positive interactions. This model is Emotionally Focused Therapy.

Grounded in the theory of attachment, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is an experiential, short term, structured, and tested model of therapy designed to help couples identify their negative communication patterns, interrupt this pattern, and create more positive, bonding, and secure emotional patterns. EFT does not see individuals as “sick” or unskilled, but rather “stuck in habitual ways of dealing with emotions with others in key moments.” As the title reflects, priority is given to emotion as a key organizer of inner experiences. EFT looks within the emotional experience of the couples and how they navigate their emotional connectedness. Dr. Sue Johnson has said, “The EFT therapist has a map. A map to relationships and how they work. A map to how they go wrong. And map to what is needed to put them right.”

A substantial body of research has shown promising results of the effectiveness of EFT. Research studies find that 70-75 percent of couples move from distress to recovery and approximately 90% show significant improvements. EFT is being used with many different kinds of couples in private practice, university training centers and hospital clinics, and many different cultural groups throughout the world. These distressed couples include partners suffering from disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorders and chronic illness.

In my work with couples, EFT has resonated with them on many levels. No longer are couples focused on fights and long-standing disagreements about specific content or trying to change the other person. When couples go through the process of EFT, perpetual problems are framed as negative disconnections that are about protests by each partner for a more loving connection and emotional safety. EFT takes the blame out of conflict and resentment and moves to fighting together against a common enemy—the negative pattern. As couples progress through the stages and steps of EFT and begin to accesses deeper emotions that underlie their struggle for connection, a new interaction emerges as individual partners see and experience each other differently. When partners experience each other as more accessible, responsive, and engaged, old wounds and negative patterns are healed, and love and emotional safety thrives.

Originally published by Utah Valley Health and Wellness Magazine

Written by Dr. Jeremy Boden

As I work with individuals and couples, I like to educate them on how our brains and our bodies impact our relationships. Understanding the correlation between these elements seems easy enough, however, I often get the question, “How do I change my brain?” The answer to this question is a great starting point to create healing and allow new interactions to take place.

Our brains are wired for connection. Each interaction we have either strengthens or weakens the connections in our brains, thus influencing the relationships with those around us. The ability to allow one or two more heartbeats before reacting or responding to one’s partner is the ultimate goal. The better you are able to emotionally regulate (by allowing more heartbeats before reacting), the more positive your interactions with others can be.

There are many ways you can impact emotion regulation and the ability to create new experiences that improve relationship interactions. Some are easier than others, and some have been targeted to help with other areas of life. I’d like to highlight two very important ways to help increase heart rate variability and improve cognitive functioning so you are better prepared the next time you might want to fly off the handle. They are exercise and sleep.

Everyone knows that exercise is good for physical health, but it also has great implications for mental health and relationship health. Increased exercise impacts the way your heart pumps blood. Long-term exercise increases your heart’s efficiency in pumping blood to the body. It doesn’t have to work so hard, and this increases heart rate variability, or the amount of time in between heart beats in a given minute. Increased heart rate variability means more regulation (more parasympathetic, or calming, influences) on the heart, and thus, more flexibility in emotional responses. This means that you have more capacity to keep the breaks on when your fight or flight response is triggered, allowing you more time to thinking critically, solve problems, or socially engage before flying off the handle and reacting to environmental stimuli.

Additionally, exercise increases the volume of the prefrontal cortex—the area in the brain associated with learning and memory. Exercise also stimulates the growth of cells by releasing chemicals in the brain. These new cells are then cleaned, solidified, and bonded together to create new memories for individuals.

We have all heard that sleep is important and should be a priority. Sleep does a lot of thing for us—it helps with creativity, remembering physical tasks, and making decisions. Sleep also does two important things in the brain: creates and consolidates memories and clears out toxins. As neurons fire together (and therefore wire together), sleep helps to connect recent memories with earlier memories. This allows individuals to remember how they reacted in past situations, and react differently next time if they desire a different outcome.

Cleaning out toxins in the brain increases attention and memory, helps individuals think clearly, and even impacts the regulation of insulin. Not getting enough sleep inhibits the ability to clear out the toxins, which can be harmful to the connections that are trying to take place in the brain. Sleeping allows us the opportunity to create new and improved experiences each day.

There are many ways individuals can have more influence on emotional responses. These are only two, but by changing our brains and our physiology in the body, we are prepping ourselves for better interactions. Being mindful of how we can impact the physiology of our bodies allows us more control over how we interact with those around us. We increase our capacity to engage more positively and be more satisfied in our relationships.

Originally published by Utah Valley Health and Wellness

Written by Dr. Kayla Mennenga

A couple I once worked with in therapy some time ago—let’s call them Kevin and Gloria—seemed to have a lot going for them: Kevin had a good job and Gloria was active in her community, and they were raising four healthy kids. They reported, however, that as family pressures had built up they had felt a growing distance from each other, and each time they tried to talk about their individual or family challenges, criticism and defensiveness soon followed, and one or both of them would get hurt or angry while nothing was resolved.

Through therapy, they learned how to create a safe space for each other to open up and go a bit deeper. A big breakthrough came when Kevin started sharing about intense criticism he had felt as a child. He talked about his fear of his own children going through the same thing. This helped explain why he felt so strongly about a particular issue. Gloria then shared her own experiences as a mother, comparing herself to other mothers, and her fear of failing to live up to expectations. This helped Kevin better understand the challenges Gloria faced every day.

Although they still disagreed on many issues (and probably always will), they deeply understood each other. They felt a desire to support each other, and suddenly some of the issues didn’t seem so big anymore. Each expressed a feeling of relief, like a weight being lifted off of their shoulders, and more confidence in their relationship.

One of the main goals of relationship therapy is to help couples (1) open up and (2) learn to be ok about the messy details of their own and each other’s lives. Trying to be perfect, individually or as a couple, can add a lot of pressure, which can turn a couple against each other and create a cycle of fighting and withdrawing that hurts the relationship. If, in the middle of all of this mess, both partners can learn to really listen to each other and just be there for each other, things will get much better. To do this, we need to listen, and open up.

Listen

Have you ever tried to talk to someone about something you are struggling with, only to have them ignore what you said and start rattling off all of the pressures they are facing? How useful was that? But how often does this happen to partners under stress! It can be hard to listen to your partner’s troubles when your mind is so full of your own, but when two people are both trying to be heard, it means neither of them are listening.

Listen to your partner. Set aside, for a moment, your own issues and give them as much space as they need. You will disagree with some of what they say, I can almost guarantee it, but this isn’t the time for resolution or debate, this is the time to show your partner you care and that you want to understand them. After all, the best research we have says that 70% of all relationship differences are never resolved anyway, so let’s stop beating our heads against the wall, and start listening with the intent to understand. The goal is just to listen, not to resolve.

Opening Up

Opening up is more than just sharing our complaints and opinions. Sometimes we will need to do a bit of self-exploration first. Maybe when your partner arrived home late without texting and you were angry, underneath that was the memory of your own father arriving home late or not at all, and the hurt you felt associated with that. The anger will push your partner away, but the painful memory may help him or her connect with you and want to support you.

There may be many other secrets or hidden thoughts, feelings or memories you hold back from your partner out of embarrassment or fear of rejection. However, consider the power of feeling loved for who you are, even though there are some parts of you you’re not especially happy about. When we stop holding back the messy parts of ourselves, we are showing trust for our partner’s capacity to love us unconditionally.

Made Strong Through Weakness

Strong relationships aren’t created by perfect people—they become strong when we are willing to drag all of our imperfections out into the open and say, “Here I am, in all of my mess, can you still love me and stick with me?” This is the glue that holds a relationship together, even in the hard times: needing someone, and feeling needed at the same time.

Written by: Sam Ryland, LCSW

Originally published on Utah Valley Health and Wellness

“Could you make sure to clean the kitchen today?” My wife asked, eyebrows raised. I hesitated trying to think of something to say. I felt my chest tighten and my breathing get shallow. She cocked her head, “What’s wrong?” I stumbled to explain everything I had to do that day without actually saying “No.” Tension began to fill the room. I knew she was comparing her structured nine to five job to my odd therapy schedule that gives me more time at home. I knew she was wondering why more didn’t get done around the house, and I thought about what it must look like from her perspective, to leave in the morning with me at my computer, and come home eight hours later to find me in the same place. How hard is it to fold some laundry, after all? Her forehead crinkled, “I don’t understand why you can’t put thirty minutes aside and clean the kitchen.”

This is a pretty mundane example of the type of things married people argue about. It seems like a pretty simple matter on the surface. The discussion was about doing chores. So why did I feel cornered? Why did something as simple as cleaning the kitchen make me feel so much anxiety? This argument was about more than simply cleaning the kitchen. I felt torn between two demands of great importance: my career or my wife’s good will. I keenly felt the burden of my family’s future resting on my shoulders, and what seemed like an endless to-do list. How could I stop working on that to do something as trivial as cleaning? What good was a clean kitchen if we were drowning in student loan debt? But not cleaning the kitchen meant the evaporation of marital bliss. How could I focus on my work with an upset wife on my mind? Either way, I was in trouble.

Any fly on the wall seeing our argument probably would have thought the issue was as simple as a lazy husband not wanting to do chores. But as in almost every argument, there was something deeper going on below the surface. To my wife, this was not merely a matter of having a clean kitchen. For her, it was about peace of mind. Coming home to a messy house after a hard day adds more stress. When the house is messy, it makes her mind feel chaotic and disordered too. Not only that, but a dirty house reminds her of the instability of growing up with a father who had bipolar disorder and refused to take his medicine. The issue of cleaning the kitchen was proxy for some deeper concerns. For me it was about earning enough to take care of my wife and to prepare for children. For my wife it was about feeling safety and peace in her own home.

Arguments can draw a couple closer together, or they can drive a wedge between them. What makes the difference? That question has a few answers, but one of the big things is whether we ever get to the deeper meanings under the surface of the fight. If we stay on the surface, we may have conclusion, but we won’t have resolution; whether I did the cleaning or not, I would have had stress and felt disconnected from my wife. That’s because what I needed, and what every person needs, is to know and feel that their partner understands and respects them. The reason we had an argument had nothing to do with cleaning at all, it was really about her basic need for safety, and my basic need for competence. We couldn’t fix the problem until we acknowledged the source of our strong emotions and what the fight was really about.

The moment we feel understood by our partner, we can think clearly, and then it’s easy to do problem solving. Next time you’re arguing and feeling upset, ask yourself about the deeper issue behind the disagreement. Find out from your partner what their position means to them. Empathize with their thoughts and feelings, and see how much easier it is to resolve arguments.

Originally published on Utah Valley Health and Wellness

Written by: Kenneth Jeppesen, LAMFT, MMFT

Kenneth is a therapist at the American Fork Center for Couples and Families and is a licensed associate marriage and family therapist. He enjoys helping individuals and couples find peace and happiness and spends the rest of his time learning about everything!

It amazes me how many people I see at the gym doing endless cardio—particularly those who are out of shape. Granted, some are training for a race, but most aren’t. Regardless, you all deserve a big high five if you’re putting in that kind of effort, because it can be exhausting.

I’ve often wondered why the general population resorts to this method when trying to get back into shape or lose weight. I think something inside us tricks our minds into thinking “if I sweat a ton, then I will lose fat.” I have even found myself in this type of thinking. That was before I really started getting into anaerobic training (strength training/interval training). After all, isn’t it as simple as calories in versus calories out? So, if I run and burn a ton of calories and cut my calories in eating, then voila, I will lose fat, right? That’s not entirely true.

Too much aerobic exercise with a low calorie diet will result in decreased muscle tissue.  This is because you will use the muscle for energy and your body will start storing fat as a survival mechanism. This is bad. Your resting metabolic rate (metabolism) will drastically decrease. That is why most people gain their weight back so easily after throwing in the towel with the cardio routine, coupled with a low calorie diet.

The best approach to fat loss, whether you’re male or female, is in this exact order: 1) A sound nutrition plan; 2) Strength training; and 3) Interval training.

Eating the right balance of healthy carbs, fats, and proteins with the proper portions and timing will allow you to…(read the rest of the story)

Originally published on Utah Valley Health and Wellness

Written by: Travis Lott

The bond and stock markets have been stuck in a range for about the past 18 months.  The Dow Jones Average keeps moving back and forth between 16,000 and 18,000.  For investors, this can be very frustrating.  It feels like you are running in place and making no progress.

It has been said that patience is the greatest virtue. We live in a world where it seems that patience has been forgotten. In our “instant everything” world people want it all, and they want it now. They don’t think in terms of paying the price or investing for the long-term. They act on a whim, rather than follow a long-term plan.

Mountain View High School in Orem has always had a very successful track team with several runners nationally ranked. I asked their coach why his runners are so successful. I thought he would tell me strategies that help make his athletes stronger and faster. Instead, he shared with me his secret that was completely different than I expected. He said that much of their success comes from learning to pace themselves. They must have the patience to wait for the perfect time to make their final move to win the race. Counterintuitively, even in running, a sport that is built around speed, exercising patience is critical to success.

Every autumn I spend some of my spare time hunting for big game animals. I focus my efforts on finding animals that have “record book” potential. In order to locate them, I backpack into places rarely traveled. Often I come back empty handed. In my quest to find trophies, I have traveled to some very dangerous parts of the world. In order to succeed, I often hunt differently than traditional hunters. While there are several factors that contribute to my success, I believe that extreme patience is the most significant.

Patience is also a key attribute for successful investors, but…(read the rest of the story)

Originally published on Utah Valley Health and Wellness

The two preceding articles in this three-part series recognized the resurgence of spirituality in therapy, identified a need for psychotherapists trained in spiritual and religious competencies, provided tips on how to find a licensed clinician who is right for you, and explored three domains of spiritual wellness.  This third and final article will address five potential benefits of spiritually integrated therapy.

I recently listened to both a psychologist’s lecture on integrated healthcare, and a book on parenting written by a world renowned researcher/therapist who devoted her career to understanding guilt, shame, vulnerability and whole-hearted living.  Both scholars spoke of spirituality as being a resilience factor.  This got me thinking about how spiritually integrated therapy may serve some of my clients, so I came up with a list of five potential benefits of spiritually integrated therapy:

1. Enhancing Protective Factors: A so-called “protective factor” is anything a person incorporates into their life which effectively decreases the likelihood of harm.  You can think of it as the opposite of a “risk factor.”  A growing body of research has shown that spiritual health and positive religious practices can in fact serve as a protective factor for a wide variety of issues across populations (i.e. hazardous substance use, suicidality, self-harm, eating disorders, etc.).  In therapy, exploring how spiritual practice can serve as a protective factor may be beneficial.
2. Increasing Stress Resilience: Those who manage stress effectively have incorporated resilience practices into their regular lifestyle.  Spiritually integrated psychotherapy recognizes spiritual health as an essential component of whole and complete living.  Therapy may explicitly discuss spiritual or religious coping strategies the client uses to solve problems, elicit a sense of meaningfulness to stressful life events, and/or learn skills to “weather the storm” in a profoundly purposeful way.  A common element among various faith traditions is an active willingness to practice non-judgmental acceptance.  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) suggests stress-resiliency is enhanced as we actively challenge our experiential avoidance of unpleasant emotions (i.e. anxiety, fear, pain) by engaging in value-based action while accepting that meaningful living does not begin when discomfort ends… it begins now.
3. Using Culturally Relevant Language…(read the rest of the story)

Originally published on Utah Valley Health and Wellness

Pornography addiction and compulsive pornography use are becoming more and more prevalent with the rise of the anonymity, accessibility, and affordability of internet porn. It is no wonder that Utah legislators have recently declared it a “public health crisis”. Unfortunately, with this increase in pornography use has come an increase in relational distress as well. Many relationships begin to struggle with the revelation of a partner’s pornography use because it feels like infidelity to the partner, which feels traumatic and takes time to heal. So if you’re the pornography-user in your relationship, but you’d like to stop, what can you do? How do we heal from such a devastating habit?

1. Insight.  Think about when this all started. What was happening in your life at the time you began intentionally seeking out pornography regularly? Chances are high that it was a particularly stressful time, whether you were 12 years old or 21. Most people who struggle with pornography use started seeking it out because they realized it helped them cope with the stresses happening in their life. This is why a lot of people relapse once they get married, which is counter-intuitive until you realize that marriage is one of the most stressful relationships we can have, and the first year of marriage brings with it a certain amount of stress and painful emotions people often don’t know how to cope with.
2. Access your emotions.  So now you know what was happening when you started using, now try and think about howyou were feeling. If this is too hard, think about the last time you used pornography and what you were feeling just before. Usually people are trying to escape from painful and overwhelming emotions like sadness, hurt, shame, pain, or fear. This is particularly true for men, who have been socialized to only feel anger or sexual. These vulnerable, softer, emotions often don’t have an outlet, so they build up until they become overwhelming and the man has to escape from them by distracting himself with pornography and the endorphin release that comes with it.
3. Accept, listen to, and act on your emotions...(read the rest of the story)

Originally published on Utah Valley Health and Wellness

When Julie and Chris (not their real names) entered my office, they were not looking at each other. I could tell they had been in a fight recently, and that it had been a bad one. They told me it started last night when Chris came home late from work and didn’t tell Julie where he had been. When asked about it, Chris became defensive. “Can’t I come home without getting the third degree?! I’ve been working hard all day to support this family!” He told Julie to stop being “such a nag.” Julie shot back a quick remark about his incompetence as a father because he had missed their son’s basketball game, again.

Whether it plays out in marital therapy or in many of your homes, this isn’t an uncommon scenario. What I told Julie and Chris surprised them. I told them the fact that they fought wasn’t the problem. The fact that they argued wasn’t (read more)

Kenneth Jeppesen joined the American Fork Center for Couples and Families in 2015. He is a master at knowing what it takes for couples to be successful in their relationships. Kenneth uses the “Gottman Method” in the counseling room and has presented all across Utah Valley on this topic. This method is based on decades of successful marital research by John Gottman. With skill and precision, Kenneth helps clients apply these findings in a way that produces happiness in relationships.

Kenneth specializes in marriage counseling, depression, anxiety and faith-based crisis counseling.